Long Knives (38 page)

CHAPTER 85

Week 3—Thursday

O
ur hearing, originally scheduled for 10:00
A.M.
, didn’t get started until 11:00
A.M.
Professor Trolder had an unexpected departmental meeting of some kind that delayed us. I had made a certain call at 9:00 on the expectation we’d start at 10:00. I made a second call that fixed the problem. Or so I hoped.

When everyone was in place, Robert had been introduced and I had duly made coffee for all, Dr. Wing asked Professor Broontz if she was ready with her next witness. She said she was and called Quinto Giordano. Professor Trolder, now a truly expert doorman, went out into the hallway, found Quinto and brought him in. Watching Trolder operate, I wondered what kind of economics paper he’d generate out of this. No academic likes a new experience to go to waste.

Dr. Wing went through the usual drone about what a friendly group we all were, blah blah, and Greta posed her first question to Quinto.

“Mr. Giordano,” she asked, “can you tell us what you believe happened to your brother Primo?”

Oscar said, “I object. That question has no foundation, calls for speculation and is just generally bad.”

Dr. Wing looked over at him. “Generally bad? Is that really a standard objection?”

“No,” Oscar said, “it’s not. It was designed to indicate how useless the answer is likely to be. Mr. Giordano’s evidence, if he has any, has to start with some basis—something he saw or heard or knew. The question, as posed, invites utter flights of fancy.”

“All right,” Dr. Wing said, “I see your point, but I’m going to allow him to answer. It’s more efficient that way, I think. You can ask him questions when he’s done, as you did with the last witness on Tuesday.”

I thought I actually saw Oscar roll his eyes, although perhaps I was just imagining it.

“Well,” Quinto said, “on the morning he died, I helped my brother roll up a map, which we put in a big red mailing tube. It was a map that showed some of the information necessary to find the resting place of the Spanish galleon
Ayuda
, which sank in 1641.”

“Please go on,” Greta said.

“Okay, well, I dropped Primo off at the law school, and he said he was headed for Professor James’s office. He had an appointment at 7:30
A.M.
”

“Then what happened?” Greta asked.

“I went into Westwood to get some breakfast. A couple of hours later, I got a call from the Reagan Medical Center saying Primo was dead. I went over and identified his body.”

“Was anything missing?”

“Yes. They gave me Primo’s wallet and other personal things, but the map wasn’t among them. I assumed Professor James had taken it. But she later claimed, according to Dean Blender, that she never got the map from Primo and that it had gone missing.”

“Do you know what happened to it?”

“I assume Professor James stole it and still has it. It’s very valuable.”

“Do you know how your brother died?”

“The coroner’s preliminary report said Primo died from acute poisoning by sodium azide, and that it was in coffee he drank. It was Professor James’s coffee that did it. She poisoned him.”

I noticed that he had not once looked at me during his testimony. Mainly he stared at the table in front of him.

Greta put her hand gently on his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Quinto, that you have to go through this in your period of grief.”

I wanted to throw up.

“But,” she said, continuing, “please allow me to ask you one final question. How do you know it was Professor James’s coffee that poisoned your brother?”

“Easy,” he said. “The preliminary coroner’s report said it was poisoned coffee, and I know my brother had no coffee before I dropped him off. Professor James has admitted she gave him a cup of coffee to drink, and traces of that poison were found in the cup Primo drank from. So it’s obvious.”

The panel, to my disgust, had been riveted by Quinto’s testimony. Professor Healey and her helmet of hair had leaned so far out over the edge of the table that I thought she might fall over.

“I have nothing further,” Greta said.

“I have a question,” Dr. Wing said. “Young man, what makes you think it was Professor James who put the poison in the coffee cup?”

“Obviously,” Quinto replied, “so she could get the map. Once she has that and puts it together with the navigator’s survival account, she’ll be able to figure out the location of the ship, just like we did, and go salvage it herself.”

“Does she have any salvage experience?” Professor Healey asked.

“Yes, she does. She worked on a treasure salvage ship last summer.”

I couldn’t help it. “As a deckhand!” I yelled out.

“Please, Professor,” Dr. Wing said, “you’ll get your chance.”

“Can you show us a copy of the map?” Professor Trolder asked.

“No, because only Professor James knows where it is. And even if I did have it, there’s confidential information on it, and I wouldn’t want to show it to you.”

“I don’t understand,” Trolder said, “what’s so confidential about the map.”

“My brother’s copy, wherever Professor James has hidden it, has the exact longitude of the shipwreck written on it.”

“What about your copy of the map?” Trolder asked.

“My copy has the exact latitude written on it. The 1641 survivor account only roughly estimated the latitude of the wreck—that’s all they could really do back then. The precise latitude, which we figured out with a modern sonar search we commissioned, is written on my copy of the map. So if someone were to steal both copies, they’d know where the shipwreck is, and they could go salvage it before we do. We spent much too much money to locate the ship to permit someone else to go grab the spoils.”

“But you don’t contend,” Trolder asked, “that Professor James has stolen your copy, too, do you? The one with the latitude?”

“No, but I’m actually afraid of her, and I have my copy under lock and key outside the state.”

I suppressed a laugh. The idea that Quinto was afraid of me was really too much. The fantasy that was being spun in the room was beyond belief. I hoped soon to unspin it.

“I see,” Trolder said, although he looked far from satisfied. “I have one more question: Why haven’t we seen a copy of the preliminary coroner’s report?”

“It’s still confidential,” Quinto said. “I haven’t seen it either. It’s simply been described to my lawyer because I’m a family member of the victim.”

“Well,” Trolder said, “as an economist, I’ve learned not to rely too heavily on anecdote, and this seems very anecdotal.”

Professor Healey emerged from her cocoon. “I don’t know about that, Paul. Sometimes anecdotal accounts provide powerful clues to the fundamental memes of culture.”

Dr. Wing turned and looked at her. “This isn’t about memes, Samantha. It’s about a murder.”

Oscar had put his hands behind his head and had been listening to the academic banter with a bemused look on his face. “If I may interrupt,” he said, “I have a couple of questions for the witness.”

“Of course, Oscar,” Dr. Wing said. “Please proceed.”

Oscar kept his hands behind his head. “You said, Mr. Giordano, didn’t you, that Professor James, with the map and the survivor account, would be able to find the ship ‘just like we did.’”

“Yes.”

My question is, did you actually find the ship, or did you just make this all up?”

“Yes, of course we found it.”

“Where is it exactly, by longitude and latitude?”

“That’s confidential, and anyway, I only have the latitude. I need Primo’s map to get the longitude.”

“How deep is the water where the ship is?”

“That’s confidential, too.”

“Well, can you at least tell us how you found the ship, or is that confidential, too?”

“I can tell you that,” Quinto said. “We hired a company that does sonar searching on the ocean bottom, gave them the general location where we believed the ship was, based on a survivor account, and asked them to search.”

“What’s the name of the company?”

“That’s confidential.”

“How long did it take them, whoever they are, to find it?”

“About three months.”

“What did that cost?”

He hesitated. “About four million dollars.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“From investors.”

“Who are they?”

“That’s confidential?”

“Why, Mr. Giordano, should the names of your investors be kept confidential?”

“That’s the way they want it.”

“So we have a ship on the bottom of the ocean in a confidential location at a confidential depth, found by a search conducted by a confidential company financed by people whose names you won’t tell us.”

Quinto didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he said, “That’s not the way I’d put it, but that’s correct overall.”

“You said correct overall,” Oscar said. “Is there some way
underall
in which it’s not correct?”

“No.”

Oscar turned to the panel. “Lady and gentlemen, I move that this witness’s testimony be totally excluded. You can’t come into a court—and this certainly is a court—and tell the court, ‘Hey, I want you to believe me about something very important, but I won’t tell you any of the details that would allow you to test whether I’m telling the truth.’ And then, just for a little icing on the mystery cake, the witness adds, ‘with regard to the coroner’s report, I can tell you a detail, but I haven’t actually seen it, and you can’t see it either.’”

Dr. Wing looked at Professor Broontz. “Greta, what do you have to say about that?”

“I don’t think that’s correct at all,” Greta said. “Mr. Quesana is wrong. This isn’t a court. It’s an informal procedure in which you can sort the information into reliable and unreliable testimony and make a decision based on what you find reliable.”

I thought to myself, as I listened to the back and forth, that Greta was, after all, a civil procedure teacher, and she knew how to distinguish between what courts do and what more informal panels do. It was the old divide between courts, who are picky about evidence, and arbitration panels, who say, “Well, we’ll listen to everything, including the junk, and sort it out later.”

Dr. Wing looked at Trolder and then at Healey and said, “I think this is important enough that the panel should take a few minutes to discuss it. We’ll take ten, adjourn to another office and return with a decision.”

I poked Oscar. “Ask who their next witness will be.”

“Excuse me,” Oscar said, “may I ask who the next witness will be?”

“It will be Julie Gattner,” Greta said.

CHAPTER 86

O
scar,” I said, after Greta, Quinto and the panel had left the room, “I need to make another phone call. I’ll be right back.”

“What have you got up your sleeve, Jenna?” Oscar asked.

“Nothing, Oscar.” As I said it, I considered telling him, but then I thought better of it, for fear he and Robert would object, cautious souls that they were, and we’d have a row about it. And somehow my plan would be derailed. But I was sure it was the right thing to do, and I didn’t want anything to interfere.

Robert grinned. “It must be something. During my trial you were always off on some private project.”

“Right,” I said, “which got the charges against you dismissed.”

“True.”

“Anyway, I need to make this call.” I went out the door and looked for a spot where I wouldn’t be overheard. When I got back ten minutes later, everyone had reassembled, and it was clear they were just waiting for me.

Dr. Wing looked around, no doubt ready to announce his ruling. In looking at him, it was clear to me he was relishing the role of judge. He’d probably missed his calling.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve caucused and agreed that we’ll let Mr. Giordano’s testimony stand. Although we’re skeptical about it, we can always weigh it, and that seems fairer in this informal setting than applying some obscure rules of evidence and excluding his testimony entirely.”

“I would argue,” Oscar said, “that those rules are hardly obscure. With all due respect, they’re common sense. But I’ll accept the panel’s ruling and move on to my final questions.

“Mr. Giordano,” Oscar asked, “do you know a gentleman by the name of Cabano who lives in Seville, Spain?”

“Like I told you in my deposition, I know of him, but I don’t know him personally, and I’ve never communicated with him.”

“If I were to tell you that my colleague here, Mr. Tarza”—Oscar pointed at Robert—“had gone to Spain and met with Mr. Cabano, and that Mr. Cabano had told Mr. Tarza that he had met with both you and your brother, would you be surprised?”

I smiled to myself, because that was the kind of question you couldn’t get away with asking in a courtroom without objection. No one on the panel even blinked, and to my surprise, Professor Broontz said nothing.

Quinto hesitated not even a second. “I would be surprised.”

I noticed that he hadn’t said it wasn’t true.

Oscar followed up. “Is what Mr. Cabano said to Mr. Tarza true? Did you meet with Cabano?”

“No.”

I thought back to the question Robert had asked Quinto in the deposition concerning the penalty for perjury. Because if Cabano had told Robert the truth, Quinto had lied in the depo and he was lying now. At least he was lying consistently.

Professor Trolder spoke up. “Where is this going, if I might ask? We on the panel don’t even know who Mr. Cabano is, or why this is important.”

I smiled inwardly. These guys were becoming more like real judges every minute.

“I’ll move on,” Oscar said, “and come back and link that up later.” He looked directly at Quinto. “Mr. Giordano, it’s correct, isn’t it, that you inherited this confidential map from your grandfather?”

“Yes.”

“His name was Sven Johannsen, I think you said in your deposition?”

“Yes.”

“And he died, I think you said, several years ago?”

“Yes.”

Oscar was doing what good lawyers do all the time. He was asking the witness a series of seemingly softball questions, but to me it had the feel of setting him up for something. Perhaps Oscar had his own secret plan.

“Would it surprise you to learn, Mr. Giordano, that I spoke to your grandfather yesterday?”

“Yes, because he’s dead.”

“Well, since this is an informal hearing, I think I’ll just testify a bit and say that a private investigator located your grandfather Sven, who is now living in a small village in Norway, where he’s been for the last ten years or so.”

“You were talking to an impostor.”

“If so, he’s a very good impostor, because he was able, without prompting, to name you, your brother Primo—even though Primo was only his stepgrandson—all of your other siblings and your mother and father. He also knew your mother’s address in Pittsburgh.”

“I don’t know how he got that information, but my grandfather is dead.”

Professor Broontz woke up from the dead. “What does this have to do with anything? We’re trying to learn who killed his brother. Whether his grandfather is alive or dead is irrelevant.”

“No,” Oscar said, “I have a fax from Sven Johannsen in my briefcase, confirming everything I’ve just said. What it demonstrates is that Mr. Giordano is an outright liar. About everything. There is indeed a survivor account in the archive in Seville, but there was no expedition to find the
Ayuda
. The whole thing is a scam.”

“Well,” Dr. Wing said, “this is indeed both interesting and, if true, distressing, but, like Professor Broontz, I’m not sure how it ties into how Primo Giordano died.”

“An educated guess,” Oscar said, “is that Primo was about to blow the scam wide open and Quinto killed him to shut him up.”

I was as surprised about everything Oscar had just revealed as everyone else in the room appeared to be. And puzzled as to where it was leading or how it would end up pointing to Julie as the killer. I leaned over to Oscar and whispered, “I thought we were implementing Plan B, which was to target Julie.”

“This is Plan C,” Oscar said. “I only got the info from Sven this morning.”

“Well,” I said, “our original Plan B is underway, and I have no intention of stopping it, because I still think it’s the right plan.”